Makerbot Industries, LLC

Hugo Boyer

Nathaniel B Pettis

Ariel Douglas

Anthony James Buser

A three-dimensional printer uses transitional lengths of build material to facilitate changes from one color to another during a fabrication process, and more generally to achieve multi-color objects corresponding to color patterns on the surface of a three-dimensional model. The transitional lengths of build material may be positioned inside a fabricated object, such as for infill, or outside the fabricated object where undesirable aesthetic properties of the transitional lengths will not impact the desired distribution of colors on the surface of the fabricated object.

Build material switching

A variety of techniques are disclosed for visual and functional augmentation of a three-dimensional printer.

Augmented three-dimensional printing

A source model describing a modeled object is identified. A preliminary fabrication model is automatically identified from the source model. A structural analysis of the fabrication model is automatically performed, resulting in the identification of a critical point and a corresponding failure mode at the critical point. The preliminary fabrication model is automatically modified to adjust the structural integrity of the modeled object with respect to the failure mode at the critical point, thereby producing an updated fabrication model. The object is printed on a three dimensional printer using the updated fabrication model.

Fabrication of objects with enhanced structural characteristics

A three-dimensional printer includes a laser line scanner and hardware to rotate the scanner relative to an object on a build platform. In this configuration, three-dimensional surface data can be obtained from the object, e.g., for use as an input to subsequent processing steps such as the generation of tool instructions to fabricate a three-dimensional copy of the object, or various surfaces thereof.

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Brooklyn, NY, United States of America

Hugo Boyer